23/07/2010

Shooting has been in full swing since June 7 on Philippe Claudel’s second feature: Tous les Soleils (“All the Suns”).

The novelist-filmmaker, who won multiple accolades for I’ve Loved You So Long [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Best Debut Film Cesar 2009, BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film, competition selection at Berlin in 2008, two Golden Globes nominations, European Film Award for Best Actress), this time delves into the life of a teacher affected by grief for his wife. The cast includes Italian actor Stefano Accorsi, fellow Italian thesp Neri Marcore, and French actresses Clothilde Courau, Anouk Aimée and young Lisa Cipriani.

Scripted by the director, the film centres on Alessandro, an Italian man who teaches baroque music and lives in Strasbourg with his 15-year-old, crisis-stricken daughter Irina, and his brother Crampone, a harmless anarchist lunatic who hasn’t stopped applying for political refugee status since Berlusconi came to power.

Sometimes, Alessandro feels like he has two teenagers to raise, while he doesn’t even realise he is himself powerless to cope with life. Trying to be a model father, he has forgotten in the process to rebuild his love life, all the more so as he is surrounded by a group of friends whose farcical capers prevent him from feeling alone. But as his daughter discovers the first flutters of love, unexpectedly, Alessandro’s world is turned upside down.

Claudel cites as a source of inspiration "Italian Tarentella music, which is reputed for its magical healing powers. I also wanted to explore the music of language. Alessandro and his brother are Italians living in France, but the film also features a German man, a Portuguese man, a young Dutch woman, a woman from Lithuania and other more minor characters of Spanish or North African origin. I like showing that the melody of these accents makes France what it is today and the interaction between these people from different backgrounds is a sign of our contemporary culture.”

The director continued: “I also hope to make a modest contribution to reviving the somewhat lost tradition whereby actors from Italy and other countries appeared in French films. Through a story with which everyone can identify, my aim is to offer the artistic illustration of that European entity which we talk so much about, but perhaps don’t fully explore."

Produced by Yves Marmion and Saïd Ben Saïd for UGC YM, Tous les Soleils will have a ten-week shoot (five weeks in Alsace and the rest in Nancy and Paris). UGC will release the film in France on April 20, 2011, while TF1 International is handling international sales.

(Translated from French)